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why are you scared of being alone with yourself? · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  When was the last time that you were completely alone?
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  And I don't just mean physically.
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  I mean no music, no phone, no distractions, no podcast.
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  Yes, I recognize the irony there.
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  When was the last time that it was just you, nothing else?
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  That you sat down and you felt what you needed to feel?
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  You let your brain run free and you simply sat there completely
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  by yourself? I think most of us don't like to
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  sit in silence. It gets uncomfortable.
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  So we we fill that silence, we fill that space immediately,
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  almost without noticing. We reach for something,
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  anything. And we've gotten so good at it
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  that we've stopped asking why we do that.
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  My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to Feel Your
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  Feelings. We live in a world that makes
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  avoiding extraordinarily easy, and I mean that literally.
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  Especially right now, with the rise of short form content, with
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  the rise of media as a whole. The entire attention economy, so
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  to say, is built on the premise that silence is a problem that
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  needs to be solved. The empty moments need to be
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  filled. Every app, every notification,
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  every scroll, it's all designed so you don't have to just sit
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  with yourself for too long. And we use that
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  enthusiastically, gratefully. I know, I use it every single
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  day. But I want to separate two
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  things here. There's the habit of distracting
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  ourselves using our phones because we're bored.
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  And then the habit of using our phones and distracting ourselves
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  because being alone with your own thoughts feels genuinely
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  unbearable. Those are very different things.
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  1 is a habit and that's already bad enough to be picking up our
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  phone every single time we feel an ounce of boredom.
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  But the other one is avoidance. And the tricky part is they can
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  look identical from the outside and they can feel identical from
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  the inside to until you actually try to stop.
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  Try sitting in your car without turning the music on after our
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  day. Try eating lunch without looking
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  at your phone. Try going to sleep without a
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  podcast or a show or music running in the background.
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  For a lot of people, myself included, there is a discomfort
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  that comes up in those quiet moments.
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  It's immediate and it's specific.
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  It's something almost close to dread.
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  I think many of us like to run. I think it feels good to get
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  away from that dread. What exactly are we running
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  from? I think a lot of us are running
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  from feeling, from feeling our feelings because it's
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  uncomfortable. Emotions don't have a, a clean
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  resolution. Often anxiety, you know, it sits
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  there and it's something that you can't fix.
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  There's grief running through you that hasn't finished
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  processing yet. There's anger that you don't
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  know what to do with. And when you're busy, when
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  you're distracted, those feelings get put on the back
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  burner. They have to wait.
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  They sit in the queue. And do you think that as long as
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  you can keep that queue full enough, you never have to
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  actually process them? But this is just a delay tactic,
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  and it works. Tell it doesn't.
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  The next thing that we avoid, other than feeling, is thought.
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  You know the specific thoughts that we've been avoiding the
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  relationship. You're not sure about, the job
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  that's draining something out of you, the version of your life
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  that you imagined at this age. There's so many thoughts that
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  overwhelm us throughout the day to the point where we just want
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  to get rid of them. Those thoughts don't go away.
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  You just bury them underground and pretend like they don't
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  exist. And finally, I think we're often
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  distracting and running from ourselves.
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  Not a feeling or a thought, just just you.
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  Just me, Who we are when there's nothing to perform, no role to
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  play, no one else to manage, no version of ourselves that we
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  want to be. Just the the raw version of
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  ourselves. For a lot of people, that
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  version feels like a bit of a stranger because we've spent so
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  long running from it. We spent so much time
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  distracting ourselves from our feelings, from our thoughts, and
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  from ourselves. And this didn't happen suddenly.
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  This didn't happen overnight. This is a learned, gradual
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  behavior. And sure, it's not new.
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  People have been distracting themselves from their feelings
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  in healthy and unhealthy ways for a very, very long time.
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  But now it's easier than ever. We have the most perfect
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  distraction device in our pockets at all times.
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  Just just waiting for us to grab it, to drown out all the noise,
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  to get rid of all the thoughts to to numb out all of the
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  feelings by scrolling, by listening, by watching.
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  It is so easy. Any waking second of the day
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  that you feel uncomfortable with a feeling or emotion, you can
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  just grab the phone. And I think we slowly learn that
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  habit. We learn to fill the space.
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  We learn that boredom in silence and being alone is a bad thing.
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  We've lost who we actually are outside of what we do, who we're
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  with, and what we're consuming. I think a lot of us know that
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  this is happening subconsciously.
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  We feel like we've lost something.
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  We feel like there's something in the back of our heads.
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  We know that those feelings are sitting there in our chests
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  waiting to be felt, but we don't want to actually do anything
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  about it because once again, it's uncomfortable.
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  It doesn't feel good. Feeling a feeling that is bad,
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  that is uncomfortable does not feel as good as pretending the
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  feeling doesn't exist. Pretending it doesn't exist is
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  incredibly easy, and it can feel really, really rewarding.
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  It can feel like you're doing something about it.
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  Because that feeling it, it goes away.
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  It goes into the back of your mind and it sits there and
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  immediately you feel some kind of relief.
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  But that feeling stays and it festers and it grows louder and
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  it learns. It adapts, it eats away at a
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  part of you, and that is the danger of not feeling your
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  feelings, of running away, of not being comfortable being
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  alone with you. I know I've felt this.
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  There have been long stretches in my life where I don't feel
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  comfortable being alone with myself, with my thoughts, with
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  my feelings. I try to keep myself distracted
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  as much as I can. I know when I was the most
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  depressed, I had a screen time of like 16 hours every single
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  day because I was trying to stop a single thought or a single
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  feeling from forming because it was so uncomfortable to just be
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  me and to feel the feelings that I needed to feel.
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  It was so unusual and uncomfortable and foreign to me,
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  and those feelings sat and they festered.
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  And I truly think part of the reason that my mental health
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  continued to get worse is because those feelings got
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  significantly more damaging than they ever would have been if I
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  just felt them when they came up.
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  And I'm still not great at it. I'm not very good at being
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  alone. I still reach for my phone or or
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  music whenever it's silent, whenever things get heavy.
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  But I'm getting better at noticing it and noticing the
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  pattern at stopping myself sometimes.
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  And sometimes noticing is enough to make a different choice.
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  So what are some small ways that we can get back to being
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  comfortable with being ourselves, with feeling our
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  feelings, with having thoughts? I feel like a broken record
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  because every podcast I come on here and I say it starts small,
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  but truly that is where the magic of mental health lies.
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  So start small. When you park your car, before
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  going inside, just sit in silence.
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  Put your phone to the side, turn the music off and just sit and
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  breathe and feel anything, feel anything that comes up.
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  Just let it be. Don't try to immediately push it
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  away. Eat one meal without your phone
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  this week by yourself. Let there be silence on a drive.
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  Keep the music off. Keep the podcasts off.
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  Ask yourself questions in those moments.
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  What am I avoiding right now? If a feeling comes up, explore
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  it. If some grief that hasn't been
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  processed comes up, explore that too.
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  If you have an anxiety pop up, explore that.
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  When I say that you need to feel your feelings, this isn't some
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  mystical, magical thing that that doesn't exist in reality.
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  No, it's real. When you feel that tightness in
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  your chest, that lump in your throat, whatever it is, instead
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  of immediately doing what you can to push it away, hone in on
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  it. Acknowledge it.
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  Ask yourself, what is this? Why am I feeling this tightness
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  here? Why am I so worried about blank?
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  Why am I so worried about about tomorrow?
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  Why am I feeling so depressed right now?
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  Explore these feelings. By doing this, you get to know
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  yourself better in those quiet moments.
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  You become more comfortable with yourself.
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  You become more comfortable with your feelings.
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  They become less foreign. Instead of something to push
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  away, instead of something to distract from, instead of
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  something that you are trying to pull away from you, you embrace
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  it. You learn that it's not
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  something to be scared of, but something to learn from.
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  You learn that the the mental health problems, the feelings
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  that you've been trying to avoid, you can coexist with
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  them, You can learn from them, you can grow with them.
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  Now, I'm not saying to throw all caution into the wind because
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  sometimes distracting is kind of all we have the capacity for.
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  But what I challenge you to do is just find those quiet moments
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  to sit with yourself. I want to remind you, I'm not a
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  doctor, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a professional in the
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  mental health industry, but I have felt this way personally.
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  I know what it's like to be uncomfortable in that silence
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  and with time, by sitting by myself, by feeling those
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  feelings, by closing my eyes and identifying where that feeling
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  sits in my body, what it's asking from me, and allowing
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  myself to explore that. I am far more comfortable in my
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  own skin, in silence, and with my feelings.
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  And you deserve that too. And as always, I want to remind
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  you, if it feels too much, don't be afraid to reach out to
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  others. Reach out to friends, family or
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  professionals. You don't have to sit alone
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  through the unbearable stuff. There are people who are trained
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  to sit with it. Getting help is brave.
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  I'm going back to therapy. I had my second session this
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  week, so just know I'm right there with you.
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  The noise is not the problem, the running is not the problem.
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  Those are just the symptoms, the thing underneath the the
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  discomfort with your own company, the dread of the quiet,
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  the feeling that being alone with yourself is somehow a place
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  you don't want to go to. That's worth looking into,
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  gently and slowly. That's worth exploring without
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  judgement. You are going to spend more time
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  with yourself than any other person in the world.
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  And if that person feels like a stranger, if you don't know the
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  insurance and outs of your feelings that need to be felt,
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  your emotions, if you're unable to sit in silence with yourself,
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  then the most important thing you can do right now is stop and
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  sit with yourself. You might be surprised to find
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  who's there that's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
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  Thank you so much for being here.
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  If you need help feeling your feelings, you should check out
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  my music on all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewell.
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  I almost guarantee it'll make you cry.
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  Also, if you like this podcast, the best way to support me is by
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  getting merch. I'll link it in the description
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  below. Also, please drop me a comment
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  and let me know what you thought about today's episode, if this
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  resonated with you at all, or how you're feeling.
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  So thank you so much for being here.
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  Thank you for your understanding that those quiet moments are
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  some of the most important moments of our lives.
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  And as always, thank you for feeling your feelings.
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  I'll see you next time.